Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

Berlin Feasts On the Art Forced Out By the Nazis

Since the divided halves of this city were already rich in museums, a united Berlin was quick to recover its place as one of Europe's great centers of art and antiquities. Yet the unification of its collections also revealed serious gaps: early modern art had been driven out by Hitler as ''degenerate,'' Impressionist and post-Impressionist treasures had been seized by the Soviet Army and the acquisition of postwar art had been badly neglected.

Already, however, amends are being made, thanks to the long-term loan of two valuable private collections. To house them, new museums have recently opened here, one given over mainly to works by Picasso and Klee and the other displaying much of the best of German and American art since the 1960's. Along with the cranes invading the city's skyline, the museums are evidence of Berlin's eagerness to catch up with the world.

''Picasso and His Era: The Berggruen Collection,'' now housed in a beautifully restored 19th-century mansion opposite the Charlottenburg Palace, is itself a symbol of reconciliation. It belongs to Heinz Berggruen, an 83-year-old Berlin-born Jew who fled Germany for the United States in 1937. A decade later, he settled in Paris, where he opened a gallery on Rue de l'Universite, became a friend of Picasso and began building up his collection.

In the 1980's, parts of the collection were on loan to museums in New York and Geneva. Between 1991 and 1996, the entire collection, which also includes works by Cezanne, Seurat, van Gogh, Braque and Giacometti, was on display at the National Gallery in London. But as early as 1991, Mr. Berggruen was invited to bring his collection here. When he agreed, Berlin spent $5 million on remodeling the city's former Antiquities Museum to receive it.

''They offered me this marvelous building, while at the National Gallery in England it was just part of the general collection,'' the bright-eyed collector said in an interview in his apartment on the top floor of the museum. ''And of course this is the city where I was born. But I donated eight Seurat oil panels to the National Gallery and I also left five 19th-century Cezannes and two other Seurats there on loan.'' In Berlin, the arrival of 70 Picassos -- oils, drawings and sculptures covering all periods of the Spanish master's life -- have made a big difference in a city that, until now, was surprisingly bereft of his works. Among the oils are ''Portrait of Jaime Sabartes,'' from 1902; ''Sitting Harlequin,'' 1905; ''Harlequin With Guitar,'' 1918; ''The Yellow Pullover,'' 1939, and ''Head of Young Man,'' 1966.

The other artist well represented in the collection is Paul Klee, who, like Mr. Berggruen, fled Nazi Germany; some 30 oils and watercolors by Klee are in the three-floor museum. In 1988 Mr. Berggruen donated most of his Klee collection -- 90 other works -- to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, a decision that he now regrets.

''I was very proud they accepted my collection,'' he said, ''but the Met is so large that the donation got lost. I thought they had such wonderful material with what I gave them that they could have created a Klee Center. But I gave the works without conditions and I learned my lesson. One shouldn't give away anything until one is dead.''

Mr. Berggruen's 118-work collection here, which includes van Gogh's ''Autumn Garden'' and Cezanne's ''Portrait of the Gardener Vallier,'' is on loan for 10 years to the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz, the foundation that runs the Berlin state museums. ''I will let my four children decide what to do with it when I die,'' he said. In the meantime, he continues to expand the collection, having added two Picassos and three Klees since the museum opened last September.

The need to maintain a living collection is all the more relevant in Berlin's new Museum of Contemporary Art, which opened last November in a former railroad station known as the Hamburger Bahnhof. The building has not in fact been used by trains since 1884; its main hall was built in 1906 to house the Prussian State Transportation and Engineering Museum. Badly damaged by Allied bombing in 1943, it was partly restored in 1984.

Then, in 1989, the offer of a loan of the private collection of Erich Marx, a wealthy Berlin construction magnate, led to the decision to turn the Hambruger Bahnhof into the city's first contemporary art museum. Designed by Josef Paul Kleihaus, the German architect of Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art, the $65 million conversion involved remodeling the existing building and adding a new top-lighted, barrel-vaulted hall. Construction of a second new hall was postponed for budgetary reasons.

While work was under way, the unification of Berlin enabled the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz to give some order to its collection: the Old National Gallery on the Museum Island in former East Berlin was assigned 19th-century German art; the New National Gallery in former West Berlin now has 20th-century art up to the 1960's; and the stunning new museum at the Hamburger Bahnhof takes over after that.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

You are already subscribed to this email.

While the new museum has received 38 contemporary works from the New National Gallery, it depends overwhelmingly on Mr. Marx's collection, which includes 183 paintings and sculptures and a vast store of drawings by Joseph Beuys and Andy Warhol. The collection was formed through the advice of Heiner Bastian, a Berlin art dealer who was Beuys's personal assistant.

American artists are remarkably well represented, with the new barrel-vaulted hall dedicated to large works by Robert Rauschenberg, Roy Lichtenstein, Cy Twombly and Warhol. Another room displays 80 early drawings by Warhol.

Elsewhere, there are works by Keith Haring, Jeff Koons, Bruce Nauman, Donald Judd, Robert Morris, Julian Schnabel and Cindy Sherman. Two memorable video installations -- ''He Weeps for You,'' by Bill Viola, and ''Crux,'' by Gary Hill -- come from the National Gallery's collection.

The German artist Anselm Kiefer is given pride of place in the steel and glass entrance hall, which resembles a train station. On the walls hang six oils by Mr. Kiefer, while his large sculptures, a crumbling jet aircraft titled ''Poppy and Memory'' and a bunkerlike library of heavy lead books called ''Census'' are the first works seen by visitors.

Richard Long's ''Berlin Circle,'' formed by pieces of slate, and Mario Merz's glass igloo, called ''The Water Drop'' also stand in this hall.

Beuys is given one room for his large sculptures and another for his drawings. And there is ample space for other German artists, including Georg Baselitz. British, French and other European artists, however, are poorly represented, posing the challenge of expanding and diversifying the collection.

''As a museum, we need to be a reference for all contemporary art,'' said Britta Schmitz, a senior curator.

The immediate problem is a shortage of money, not only for acquisitions but also for construction of a second new hall. ''The Marx collection is so big that not all of it can be displayed,'' Ms. Schmitz said. ''We urgently need the other wing.''

To insure that returning visitors can find something new, temporary exhibitions are planned and, after one year, the permanent collection will be rehung. In time, though, only new works can keep the museum contemporary.

We are continually improving the quality of our text archives. Please send feedback, error reports,
and suggestions to archive_feedback@nytimes.com.

A version of this article appears in print on March 5, 1997, on Page C00011 of the National edition with the headline: Berlin Feasts On the Art Forced Out By the Nazis. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe